Codemasters' F1 2011 is the latest installment of the official Formula 1 …

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This year's installment of the official Formula 1 racing game, Codemaster's F1 2011 has just arrived. Formula 1 is often referred to as the pinnacle of motorsport, and this year's championship is 19 races long, starting with Australia back in March and finishing in Brazil at the end of November. The cars are lightweight, high powered monsters, designed in-house by each team. Codemasters' F1 game lets you live out the life of a virtual F1 driver, complete with being able to answer somewhat inane press questions with the obligatory "for sure."

The F1 franchise had been missing from our consoles for a few years, reappearing properly last year with, you guessed it, F1 2010, which brought HD to F1 a year before the series actually broadcast in high definition. F1 2011 is abiding by the maxim of not fixing things that aren't broken, and the gameplay is pretty much the same as before.

There's a career mode, where you start at the back of the grid in one of the underfunded teams and, after proving yourself, you can progress to the front of the pack, landing a drive with Ferrari, Red Bull, or McLaren. In career mode you also get to be interviewed by Autosport and BBC Radio 5 Live journalist David Croft, check your e-mail for sponsor offers, and choose your helmet paintjob from a range of options. Alternatively, you can just select individual races, which minimizes the loading screens and RPG-like elements in favor of just letting you drive. Finally, there's also multiplayer, with up to 16 players and eight AI cars making up full grids of 24 cars.

As with last year's game, F1 2011 isn't particularly easy, especially once you turn off the driving aids. If I've learned anything in my week or so with the title, it's that I'm getting old and my reflexes aren't what they used to be. It's quite playable with the controller, but you need a wheel to get the most out of the game. Codemasters has also definitely dealt with the issue where its physics engine made cars feel like they were rotating around their center points rather than from the front wheels. Well done, chaps.

The graphics look good. Perhaps not GT5 good, but that's expected. The lighting is particularly well done, and gets shown off to good effect by the dynamic weather effects, as well as by the Abu Dhabi race, which takes place during a sunset. The sounds aren't bad, but I'd be lying if I said the current crop of F1 cars sound pleasant from the driver's seat, screaming away at 18,000 rpm.

You do get a good representation of the sensation of speed, and barreling towards the first turn in the middle of a pack of 24 cars gives you an appreciation for how tricky it is to time your braking in order to avoid a pile-up. Should you fail, be prepared to either be told to drive through the pits, or have a few seconds added to your overall time. Repeatedly drive like an ass and you may even get the dreaded black flag, at which point the game automatically takes control of your car and drives you back into the pit lane for an early bath.

I began to appreciate the workload that F1 drivers have while in their cars. F1 2011 now features KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or a battery-powered boost) and DRS (Drag Reduction System, or a rear wing that lowers to increase top speed.) Your KERS battery charges up each lap, and gives you an 80 horsepower boost for up to six seconds in total, so you need to use it wisely. You can activate DRS anywhere on track during qualifying and practice sessions, and in conjunction with KERS you can get a good speed increase. During a race it's a bit more complicated; you can only use DRS at specific parts of each track, and then only when you're within a second of the car in front (it's designed to help overtaking, something that has been notoriously hard in F1). Juggling the use of these while keeping the car pointed the right way, changing gears, and without hitting anyone else is a challenge.

F1 2011

The biggest annoyance is the load times, which are substantial. The rubber banding that I criticized last year doesn't seem nearly as bad, thankfully, and I haven't encountered any glitches or AI cars ignoring their pit stops like last time.

All in all, F1 2011 is a nice iterative improvement on last year's version. If you're an F1 fan, and you want the latest tracks (the new Indian F1 circuit in Delhi and the returning Nürburgring GP circuit) along with the latest drivers and car liveries, then it's a no-brainer. As with last time, it's a pretty specialized game and even on the easiest setting it might prove to be a bit too focused for the casual gamer looking to turn some laps. If that sounds like you, GT5 or the soon-to-be-released Forza Motorsport 4 might be more your speed.

51 Reader Comments

One of the things I've wondered about the recent Codemaster's series is how the physics stacks up to the good-ole EA/ISI series. Unlike the old days, modern consoles should be able to handle the physics load of a proper sim, as opposed to previous generation consoles. As I have little time, though, I have not really tried these out yet.

No mention of AI changes or Safety Car? I'm just waiting for this game to release and one of the best things I've heard about it is the AI (and the much needed fixing of the bugs). The Safety Car is a little bit of restricted mode from what I've read elsewhere.

Jonathan, you mentioned that F1 2010 brought HD to F1. Does that mean you never played Formula One Championship Edition on the PS3, from 2007? It's definitely HD, and it was definitely underappreciated.

I will note that the KERS isn't a 6 second boost total. It is per lap, provided there is enough energy stored in the batteries to support the extra 60 kW for that period of time.

As for the game itself, I can attest to the fact that it is designed with racing wheels in mind. I have the PS3 version with the Logitech Driving Force GT. It is amazing how much of the road you can feel through the wheel, as well as using visual and sound cues to determine whether you are picking up marbles on your tires off the racing line, where your tire grip is, and even the stability of your car. For example, using DRS after turn 5 in Melbourne in the Lotus might cause you to lose control half way down the straight if you aren't super careful. You can feel that the back end is starting to slide out on you. You can also feel significant handling differences between a car like the Lotus and the RB7.

Speaking of handling difference, they did manage to nail that down. For example, in the lotus, you may only be able to get just over 3Gs of lateral force, causing you to have to take corners slower, lest you understeer, or you have to be very careful coming out of a corner because you don't have the downforce to keep you from oversteering either. In the RB7, you can almost treat the gas pedal as an on/off switch because you have so much downforce in the corners, you are sticking to the road and can achieve higher lateral Gs (as high as 5+). It does make sense why the Lotus, Virgin and HRT cars consistently finish in the bottom of the grid. Even going from the STR car to the RB7, even though the STR is a good car, you can feel how much the RB7, McLaren and Ferrari are just simply better cars, even though the powerplants are all equals.The aerodynamics of the cars make a huge deal of difference.

Now, regarding the title of your article, F1 2011 is a niche game... only in North America. Worldwide, Formula 1 commands over a half billion viewers, and the majority of the sales of this game will be in Europe, where it is significantly more popular. A lot of people that have a huge appreciation for racing and the technical aspects of Formula 1 will enjoy the crap out of this game. It is hard... but trying to drive a Formula 1 car versus a GT car or any other road car is not going to be easy.

Are there things that can still be improved? Of course. Kind of a bummer to be penalized 10 grid places because some other driver rammed my back end during practice, and I'm sure there are other things that people will have a beef with, but what the game does do right is provide a pure Formula 1 experience.

One large improvement in this version over last year's version is in recovering from oversteer. Last year, if the back end of your car kicked out, you were doomed to a preordained spin. This year, you can actually pull out of it with some quick correction. Overcorrect and you'll be heading for the wall though. I'm very pleased with the handling improvements so far. Not so pleased with my driving. Still trying to dial in wheel settings so the car goes where I want it to.

@BigLan On the DRS, press it once and the wing closes when you push it again, or when you brake. No need to hold the button. An indicator on the steering wheel will blink green if DRS is open and stay solid when it is closed.

For KERS, driving the Ferrari 150, I was able to use my full KERS on every lap, but I haven't seen any on screen indication as to how much KERS is available to you versus how much you can legally use per lap. It would be nice to have that feedback though.

@BigLan On the DRS, press it once and the wing closes when you push it again, or when you brake. No need to hold the button. An indicator on the steering wheel will blink green if DRS is open and stay solid when it is closed.

Thanks, maybe this is configurable, at least on the PC judging by Donkey's comment above.

Next question - can you get the audible beep to indicate shift points like red bull introduced, or is it just the usual lights on the steering wheel?

Not sure about the audible beeps. The lights are still there, and I tend to use the engine noise as a reference as well, but I don't use manual transmission. The paddle shifters on the Logitech Driving Force GT suck and makes using manual transmission a pain, so I generally stick with automatic. I haven't heard any beeps to this point yet and I haven't seen any options that I can remember that mention audible shifting guides.

@BigLan On the DRS, press it once and the wing closes when you push it again, or when you brake. No need to hold the button. An indicator on the steering wheel will blink green if DRS is open and stay solid when it is closed.

Thanks, maybe this is configurable, at least on the PC judging by Donkey's comment above.

Next question - can you get the audible beep to indicate shift points like red bull introduced, or is it just the usual lights on the steering wheel?

* Do you have a sense for how closely the cars for the various teams match the real cars? (In terms of performance and specs - like the HRT cars being dead slow with no KERS.)

* If you used a wheel, which one and how did you find it?

The slower cars are definitely slower. The Lotus I was using in career mode didn't have KERS, and DRS didn't seem to work very well.

I used a Fanatec Porsche Turbo S wheel, it was pretty good but it took quite a while to get the FF to a point I was happy with.

BigLan wrote:

One question - is the DRS button press once to enable it, and then it disengages once you hit the brakes, or do you have to keep it held down?

Also, does the game model KERS recharging during braking in a lap, or do you always have a fresh battery when you need it?/quote]

ISTR you have to keep holding it - it didn't actually occur to me to just press it once and wait until I hit the brakes.

KERS recharges once you cross the start-finish line each lap.

khrytical wrote:

Jonathan, you mentioned that F1 2010 brought HD to F1. Does that mean you never played Formula One Championship Edition on the PS3, from 2007? It's definitely HD, and it was definitely underappreciated.

Sorry, never did. Only bought a PS3 for GT5 (and wish I hadn't, the fact that it plays Blu-Ray is the only reason I still have it).

cheier wrote:

Now, regarding the title of your article, F1 2011 is a niche game... only in North America. Worldwide, Formula 1 commands over a half billion viewers, and the majority of the sales of this game will be in Europe, where it is significantly more popular. A lot of people that have a huge appreciation for racing and the technical aspects of Formula 1 will enjoy the crap out of this game. It is hard... but trying to drive a Formula 1 car versus a GT car or any other road car is not going to be easy.

If I were writing the review just for people like me I'd have given it a different title, but Ars' audience is mainly American, so unfortunately for now, it's a fair comment. Maybe things might change post-2012.

nrXic wrote:

BigLan wrote:

I saw an ad for this on the bbc website yesterday, otherwise I had no idea it was coming out.I might pick it up next year, but I'll be playing Forza 4 for a while before I need another racing game.

One question - is the DRS button press once to enable it, and then it disengages once you hit the brakes, or do you have to keep it held down?

Also, does the game model KERS recharging during braking in a lap, or do you always have a fresh battery when you need it?

I've watched my cousin play for a bit, and KERS does not recharge while braking (you get a full bar for each new lap). Good question about the DRS button, I don't know.

Right, that's how it works IRL - you get 6 seconds per lap, and it recharges during the lap, but once you use 6 seconds during a single lap it's done until you cross the start-finish line.

Jonathan, you mentioned that F1 2010 brought HD to F1. Does that mean you never played Formula One Championship Edition on the PS3, from 2007? It's definitely HD, and it was definitely underappreciated.

That game looked incredible from a graphical standpoint, but the physics were flawed.

The PS3 version of F1 2011 looks noticably bad compared to the 360 version. F1:CE is still the graphical king on the PS3.

On Kers: unless you're driving dead slow with almost no braking, you always can charge it up lap-to-lap.

What you actually see is a measure of how many seconds you have available in that lap. That's why it never goes up gradually, but resets to full at each pass of the start/finish lines.

It's exactly the same in the real race, you can see it in actual in-car footage.

Right, but the battery only holds 300KJ while you're allowed to use 400KJ of KERS in a lap, or about 6.7 seconds, so does the game limit you to ~5 seconds of kers use on a straight before it's recharged braking for a corner, or could you use the full amount? And if the start/finish line is halfway down a straight could you use a continuous 13 seconds in the game, which you couldn't do in the real car?

I find this oddly amusing. I can't say I found GT5's graphics that stellar. It might have been the fact that only a certain percent of the drivable cars actually had decent, highly-textured models, and the rest were practically a decade old in their look.

Codemasters however have been churning out some pretty decent graphics engines in their recent racers. I haven't played Dirt 3, but I'd assume it's probably a step up over Grid 2, and that was quite a pleasing looking game.

Right, but the battery only holds 300KJ while you're allowed to use 400KJ of KERS in a lap, or about 6.7 seconds, so does the game limit you to ~5 seconds of kers use on a straight before it's recharged braking for a corner, or could you use the full amount? And if the start/finish line is halfway down a straight could you use a continuous 13 seconds in the game, which you couldn't do in the real car?